Comment 17 for bug 536583

Currently in the forum there is a discussion about several bugs (https://wl.widelands.org/forum/topic/2786/). Part of it was the missing ability of stationing soldiers permanently in headquarters, warehouses and ports (i.e. topic of this bug). The start of it was the observation in a tournament game that the headquarters of a player was destroyed when a nearby military building was conquered by the opponent. The reason was that simply that no soldier was in the headquarters.

Now I think that all three building types with storage (warehouse) abilities are quite important. So the natural wish is to be able to select a certain number of soldiers stationed in it. Just like in any other military building. (just to repeat the point of the bug report)

To be discussed are several implementation details (I will use the term "warehouse" for all three types):

1. Maximum number of soldiers?

According to the importance of the building it should not be too low. I'd suggest at least 5. But that depends on what kind of playing strategies are wanted. Should it be easy or hard to defeat a warehouse? If the number is too high it would be almost impossible. And if the warehouse is really important the player can build other military buildings next to it to have a certain protection.

2. Should a warehouse be conquerable?

I'm not sure about this. On one side if it behaves like a military building in being attackable so it would only be consequent. On the other side it would be quite an advantage for the attacking player.

3. Should the player get the wares inside the warehouse, at least the basic ones?

I don't think so. That would be too big an advantage for the winning player. The defeated player already lost all the wares which is already (depending on the stock) a big drawback. That should be enough.

"Yes" to points 2 and 3 is favoured by Tinker in the forum thread.